But hey, as my idol Dona Spring might say, if it's in the Guardian then it must be true! 
Posted on 10/17/2003 10:53:32 AM PDT by PatrioticCowboy
US troops question presence in Iraq
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Friday October 17, 2003 The Guardian
A sizeable portion of US forces serving in Iraq describe troop morale as low, and say they have no intention of re-enlisting, damaging the campaign by the US government to brighten up the image of the postwar occupation.
The survey of 1,935 troops, published in a series of special reports on Iraq in the Stars and Stripes newspaper, also found that a significant number of troops were confused about the purpose of their presence, and had lost faith in their mission.
Coinciding with the report, the army yesterday admitted that at least 13 US troops had committed suicide in Iraq, representing more than 10% of American non-combat deaths there, and said the army had sent a suicide-prevention expert to Iraq.
Stars and Stripes, which is funded by the Pentagon, says it embarked on the project after receiving scores of letters from disenchanted servicemen.
The mailbags belied claims last week by President Bush that increasingly negative public perceptions of Iraq were a product of media spin, and that those who had been there held different views. Not so those for serving up to 12 months in Iraq, according to Stars and Strips, which noted that the troops' views stood in sharp contrast to those of senior officials on brief visits to Iraq.
Yesterday the newspaper quoted an unidentified master sergeant as saying that the delegations of officers and Congressmen only met small groups of specially selected soldiers. "They stacked the deck," he says.
Instead, 49% of those who answered the newspaper's questionnaire rated the morale of their unit as low or very low, 49% said it was unlikely they would re-enlist, and 31% said they thought the war had not been worthwhile.
Stars and Stripes noted that soldiers who were open about morale problems had at times faces disciplinary action. Although the malaise appears to be linked to uncertainty about the length of tours of duty in Iraq, pay scales, and conditions on the ground, another significant factor appears to be the meaning of their mission. Stars and Strips said 35% of respondents complained their mission was not clearly defined. It quotes a member of the National Guard as saying: "We're in the dark."
The original article is going to echo back and forth across the Atlantic like this a few more times, generating stories which are not original reporting but merely copying the information in the first story and presenting it as a 'news' story.
Actually, it wasn't my list. Another freeper dug up most of those and posted them. I had realized he was posting a lot of those types of threads, what I didn't realize was how many of them he had posted in such a short time and that that is practically all he has been posting since he's been here. Been here roughly 60 days and posted over 70 threads like this.
To me, we need to see the news. All the news. Good and bad. But if someone is using the deaths of American soldiers to further a political agenda, that person is actually trivializing those deaths- mocking the dead as it were.
To wit- I have never hit the abuse button on him. I guess someone else did or the mods felt like they saw a pattern that wasn't on the up and up. He posted those stories though- not me. I was just pointing it out.
As for PatrioticCowboy, I doubt that he is either!!
Yes, it looks like he has.
You know, it wouldn't have hurt him to simply have posted some other types of articles once he realized people were noticing what he was doing. By simply posting a dozen or so articles of interest to conservatives on differing subjects, he could've rubbished any complaint.
But hey, as my idol Dona Spring might say, if it's in the Guardian then it must be true!
We used to sit around the shop on post and "read the funny papers", our cute little term for the Stars and Stripes.
Richard W.
As pointed out on a previous hashing of this topic, WHO is the Stars & Stripes Newspaper is probably the more interesting question.
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